The Academy of Model Aeronautics

For model aviation enthusiasts, joining the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) is more than a membership. It’s an invitation to a lifelong passion, a tight-knit community, and the thrill of flight. But with thousands of new adult members joining each year, AMA faced a critical question: how do you make each member feel welcomed, informed, and connected from day one?

🔹 Association Type: Recreational Individual Membership 
🔹 About the Organization: The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) is a non-profit community of model aviation enthusiasts dedicated to advancing the hobby of flying model aircraft through education, safety initiatives, and club engagement. 

The Challenge

Like many associations, AMA faced a familiar challenge: new members were joining, but not fully engaging.

Without a structured onboarding experience, many new memberes overlooked one of the most valuable aspects of their membership—joining a local flying club. These clubs are essential for connection, learning, and long-term retention, yet awareness and participation were low. At the time, AMA relied on one-way communication with limited visibility into how members were engaging early on, creating a major gap in the member experience.

The Solution

In order to see a change in new member engagement, AMA knew they had to reimagine their onboarding experience. Using PropFuel, they took an interactive, personalized approach to guide new members toward resources relevant to each individual and encourage club involvement from the start. This multi-step campaign focused on: 

• Understanding the needs and interests of new members.
• Providing key resources for safety, training, and community involvement, related specifically to their needs.
• Capturing new member profile data and writing it back to their AMS.
• Encouraging engagement with local AMA clubs.

Using PropFuel’s conversational engagement approach, AMA asked new members about their interests and provided tailored follow-ups based on responses. Unlike previous static emails, this new approach allowed AMA to gather valuable insights into member behavior and preferences.

The Implementation

The campaign began with two foundational check-ins designed to introduce new members to AMA and encourage club participation:

Check-In #1

The first check-in let members decide what they wanted to learn more about - 45% requested more information on member benefits, but even the individuals with other interests received exactly what they were looking for.

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Check-In #2

The second focused on club participation – 369 out of 595 respondents confirmed they had joined a club, while 226 had not, and of those, 72% requested to be connected with one - creating a high-value engagement opportunity

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Key Takeaways

PropFuel’s real value came from the personalized onboarding experience it enabled. AMA turned a static process into a “choose your own adventure” journey, guiding each new member based on their interests, whether they’d joined a club or not. Follow-ups adapted in real time, leading to even higher engagement in emails about clubs and helping AMA close a key data gap on member participation. This lead to more relevant experiences, stronger connections, and deeper long-term engagement.

The Results

✅   45% engagement rate – Double the rate seen with AMA’s previous system.
✅   Higher club participation insights – For the first time, AMA had data showing that new joining members were actively joining clubs. This data can be attributed back to the individual in the AMS.
✅   Improved communication efficiency – Delivered concise, relevant information that resonated with an older audience and captured the data for future communications.
✅   Stronger onboarding experience – Personalized engagement replaced one-size-fits-all messaging.
✅   Foundation for future campaigns – Established a model for ongoing personalized re-engagement and retention tracking.

What's Ahead

For AMA, clubs aren’t just a benefit, they’re the heart of the organization. By launching a data-driven onboarding campaign with PropFuel, AMA simplified the process, personalized outreach, and encouraged deeper member involvement.

For the first time, AMA could track which new members joined clubs, unlocking insights that allowed them to tailor each journey. AMA’s success highlights the power of timely, relevant, and personalized communication to strengthen onboarding and boost long-term engagement.

Ready to transform your onboarding strategy? Schedule a call with our team.